September 8, 2006 -- "How to tote up all the hypocrisy spewing from Camp Clinton - including from the former president himself - over ABC's upcoming mini-series, "The Path to 9/11"?
Calling the docudrama, which is based on the Kean-Hamilton 9/11 Commission's report as well as other sources, "fiction," the Clintonites want it re-edited to tone down its criticism of the former president - or, better still, yanked entirely.
To show the film as it now stands, Bill Clinton's office said in a statement yesterday, would be "despicable."
What - no liberal cries of "censorship"? Nothing about the sacred constitutional guarantee of free speech? No warnings about the "chilling effect" caused by ideological zealots intent on pursuing their partisan agenda?
Oh, well. Hypocrisy, it's been said, is the lubricant of political discourse.
Clinton's folks - including former National Security Adviser Sandy "I've Got Stolen Secret Papers Down My Pants" Berger - claim the flick is full of factual errors that portray them as lax in their pursuit of Osama bin Laden.
But the 9/11 Commission did fault the Clinton folks, along with the Bush administration, for mistakes that paved the way for 9/11. As we've argued on this page for the past five years, those mistakes extend back to the Reagan and Carter administrations.
But with Democrats battling to regain control of Congress, it seems that nothing that doesn't place 100 percent of the blame on George W. Bush is acceptable.
How the tables have turned. Remember how Democrats responded to Republican criticism three years ago, when CBS prepared to air a two-part drama about Ronald Reagan that portrayed the late president as an unfeeling tyrant, complete with wholly invented dialogue?
"This is censorship, pure and simple," wailed Barbra Streisand.
The Reagan film's defenders noted that some of the critics hadn't even seen the film - just like ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who now complains about the 9/11 film, even though she only has second-hand information about it.
And People for the American Way lashed out at "the echo chamber of right-wing pundits and Republican Party officials" for declaring that Ronald Reagan "is off-limits to media treatment that is anything short of fawning."
Gee. Isn't that exactly what the Clintonites are saying about their leader right now? How shocked they seem that some folks in Hollywood, of all places, deem to portray Team Clinton in a way that is "short of fawning."
Tom Kean, co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission and a paid consultant for the film, insists it is balanced and accurate - adding that "people in both administrations are not going to be happy."
Which is as it should be. The saddest part about the real-life path to 9/11 is that the blame dates back a quarter-century.
Sad to say, the Clintonite protests seem to be working - ABC late yesterday said it has altered some scenes. Just how far the network gives in remains to be seen."
ABC has bent, but let's hope they won't break. If they've assembled the facts as best they could then it's ultimately up to the viewing audience to make the decision as to the culpability of several administrations in allowing islam to build enough strength and attack us thusly. What cannot ever be deined is the Clinton White House's fear of using military force, and it's state of confusion as Slick Willy ran from one criminal indictment after another.
And quoting Sandy Berglar? Please.
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